2015.09.14 • Fukuoka Day1

✈️九州 14/9 MONDAY DAY 1

Phone/Data plan: umobile $120 for 7day

11:00 香港機場 Arrived at HK airport at 11:22, a little later than the planned time. Good thing my travel mates know me well enough to meet up earlier! We checked in with relative ease. Our luggages weigh 9~14kg, with the one I thought felt lightest to being the heaviest, odd eh. But having paid a 20kg limit, we can still do some serious shopping!

13:05-17:20 香港機場 → 福岡空港

13:00 Everyone has boarded and the doors are closed. Flight attendants start making the safety announcements, and we’re all excited. Also a little more sleepy. The problem with cheapo flights is we can’t choose our seats! So not only do I not get a window seat, but we’re split by 2 on row 4 and 2 on row 20; that’s apparently the closest the deacon can find for us, how early do people check-in sheesh😒.

13:15 Take off!! Meals are not included, so we brought our own food, although yes they discourage outside food.
We got our JR Northern Kyushu pass on board the flight HK express for a slight discount at HKD620 (slightly cheaper than ¥10,000 at 0.064 exchange rate!). We only get this small receipt with a HK express stamp and we’re told to redeem it at a JR counter. Don’t lose it!!
[$630 HKD]

16:00 The crew was told to prepare for landing, but after turning round and round in air, I’ve still yet to see the airport. The guy sitting at the window seat kept sticking his head out for pictures, but I managed to catch one or two in between his (grr). The birds eye view of Kyushu already looks exhilarating!

16:22+1 hour Touch down!!!! We’re at Fukuoka!! Japan is 1 hr ahead. Because we were sitting rather front, we had the luxury of getting off early. Although we had to wait for our group mates anyway.

18:20 Done immigrations. It was huge line up, but good thing we had each other for company, so time went by in joy. 進入日本境內排隊很多人耶，幸好互相作伴，我一個人大概就悶死了。

19:00 Bus from international to domestic line, which incidentally also where Subway Kuko line 地下鐵空港線 is. (接駁巴士國際線航廈到國內線, approx. 10min, free)

19:24 福岡空港 → 博多 (Fukuoka City line/Subway Kuko line, ¥260). We have enough Suica/iccoco cards to go around, and don’t actually have to buy tickets. Fukuoka is probably one of the cities with an airport so close to metropolis. I wonder how much residents tolerate the noise of overhead planes.
[¥260]

19:33 Central ticketing office at JR Hakata station to redeem our JR Kyushu pass and make reservations for the JR trips from Aso to Ōita, Ōita to Yufuin, Yufuin to Hakata, Hakata to Kokura 小倉 during the next few days of our trip. Please write each trip separately instead of “Aso → Hakata”.

19:54 Mister Donuts. Walked by a Mister Donuts and saw their end of day sale, and under the effects of beginning tingles of hunger, we bought a box of 6 donuts for ¥600.
[¥600]

21:22 Richmond Hotel Kumamoto Shinshigai, ¥59,600 for 2 rooms, 4 people, 2 nights. The hotel room is pretty standard, maybe just slightly bigger than the usual mini size, because the bed was positioned with a sideways passable strip of floor for the second person to get in and out of bed. Unfortunately, they seemed to have only prepared the room for one person, because there was only one slipper, one pillow, one towel. Our luggages had to stay in the hallway.
[¥14,900]

22:59 Vito Italian gelato.
📮熊本県熊本市中央区下通1-4-15
☎️096-312-3223
⏰11:00~00:00
At ¥470 for a cup or cone of three flavours,
Pesca ペスカ (白桃),
Aso アソ (牛乳)
Mela メーラ (紅玉りんご)
The ones we chose turned out to be all white, so it was kinda hard to tell which flavour we were eating, but they were good all the same. 原本想點Fior Di Marrone (熊本県産の栗)但它是premium gelato要外加¥100所以換掉了。結果點出來三款都是白色的，要分辨口味有點困難。大家姐喜歡牛奶味的，而我比較喜歡水果或者酸味的蘋果。可憐的爆爆子沒有吃到。

02:08 Finally we’re all showered and after some chatting, it’s time for goodnight. 洗走香港帶來的疲勞後，大家輕鬆的聊聊天，然後準備睡覺呢。